h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Isn't the problem with peace, love and understanding that it's actually rather dull? It's like complaining about the news being full of wars and disasters. In a town where everyone was happy and nice to each other, you'd be writing things like 'On Saturday, the Townswomen's Guild held their flower show and Mrs Roger's dahlias were judged outstanding'.

So, if you're writing fiction, you build in conflict. And, if your hero and heroine come through wars and disasters, and, at the end,they are reunited and go off into the sunset together, don't you think that gives your reader more satisfaction than if nothing more had happened than the odd problem with the supermarket not stocking the right kind of rice?

I really think we need to ask ourselves *why* we think it's 'dull' when there are no wars or disasters. Do you want a war in your backyard? I suspect you don't. And since when was peace, love, and understanding uninteresting? I mean, is a story really boring because nobody got murdered or started a war? Seriously?

As a teenager, I used to read my dad's hometown (weekly) newspaper, called 'The Sparta Expositor'. It was an ancient paper for a very small town in Tennessee. The local farmers lived in the 'hills and hollers'. Believe it or not, this paper had a number of 'correspondents' who reported the doings in Hickory Valley, or up on Lost Creek, or over by Spencer Mountain... Grandchildren came to visit. Tea was taken, so help me.

I loved reading this, and I didn't know most of these people. There were whole sagas in there, all in dialect. The most exciting items were the photos of the copperhead snakes the farmers killed and brought in to show. Copperheads are often quite large, and extremely poisonous. Unlike rattlers, they strike without warning. Once, the town even got a new traffic light. Big headline.

And then there were the wedding announcements - which were really scary. Especially as it usually said something like 'the bride is a graduate of the junior high school.' Junior high school graduates are generally about fifteen. At the same age, I found the prospect of matrimony pretty terrifying...

Of course we don't want to read in excruciating detail about the church fete. You know what? We don't even want to read that in the church newsletter. That's why we need to practice being *interesting*, say I...I'll bet I can make a church potluck supper sound interesting. Heck, I could make this morning's *service* sound interesting, but I might get sued...

I still beg to differ when people claim that a good novel requires a dozen murders, an earthquake, a volcano and/or a major war to hold the reader's interest. But you still need some kind of tension between 'is' and 'oughta be', methinks.

I think you need to write humour to make the small irritations interesting - like Jane Austen perhaps.

I think humour's a good approach to that. I don't know that I find Ms Austen that funny, do you? All those endlessly detailed parties. But I can think of a lot of writers who do it well.

I was just telling Elektra about a newspaper column I find unforgettable. It was the columnist Russell Baker. He wrote something about a cucumber on the sidewalk in New York. It was pretty droll.

Aha! Found it! It was two cucumbers.

http://books.google.com/books?id=9qc5BAAAQBAJ&pg=PT362&lpg=PT362&dq=russell+baker+cucumber+new+york&source=bl&ots=1DL7AOA_wR&sig=4paLexMRYJXsjWMihqgahte88fU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7iq-aqo3ZAhUION8KHSYkDyUQ6AEIQTAK#v=onepage&q=russell%20baker%20cucumber%20new%20york&f=false

minorvogonpoets point in the first reaction reminds me of the (hitchhikers guide) planet without competition or emotion, where all books have a fixed length and the apparent lead figure of a book dies two thirds along the way due to dehydration because there was something wrong with the water supply. That's dull.

On the other hand, prolongued and excessive happiness can also grind you down. Moments of sadness give value/reference to the happiness.

Once upon a time there was a little red car that went into space. Round and round went the little red car. Forever. The end.

To be honest, I find Jane Austen irritating. I want her women to go and do something useful.

I still maintain that a story needs conflict and, if it's longer than a short story, it needs variations of tone and pace. The story Caiman Raptor Elk mentions is dull because it has neither . The story FWR tells could be made interesting if an alien spacecraft arrived and the occupants speculated about what it was and how it got there.

In short, things need to happen!

Really, people? Seriously? What did I do to you?

I didn't suggest lack of conflict. Next week's column is about conflict.

And I can't remember suggesting boring. Where did I suggest boring?


THE LITTLE RED CAR

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Luke Lugloper who read a lot of science fiction. He could get away with it - even in school - because he was so darn smart. In fact, he was so smart that the other kids didn't like him much. Once, they threw him down the stairs. He ended up in hospital, where he read more science fiction.

'I know,' he thought.'I'll grow up to be just like Zaphod Beeblebrox. I'll be the President of the Galaxy and have my own spaceship. Then nobody will pick on me.'

Luke grew up and went to college - several colleges, in fact. He attended some prestigious institutions. But one day, he looked around and said,'Enough of this. Time to *do* something.' He walked out on the last university after two days - and started a small web company with his brother. His brother was nice to work with, and never threw him down the stairs.

The web company was boring, but the two young guys sold it for some serious money. Then they bought another struggling web-thing, built it up, sold it for more dough, and round and round for about a decade... A lot of idiots lost their shirts during this era of garage start-ups and 18-hour days in rented offices with foozball tables, but Luke? He had the knack. Just like Zaphod Beeblebrox. And then it got really interesting.

After Luke went from 'serious money' to 'hey, I could buy a politician - well, a cheap one', he became a major player in the way internet business worked. However, he lost his bid for CEO of the company he built. The bullies were still trying to throw him down the stairs. But when the company was sold, Luke moved up from 'politician money' to 'GDP-of-a-small-nation' category.

That's when Luke stopped messing about with the internet, and got into space technology. I mean, if he waited for the bullies who threw him down the stairs to build one, he'd be waiting a long time, right? He bought a car company on the side, just for fun.

After all, it's easier to test computers in vehicles when the vehicles are somewhere *on* the planet, right?

At last, the big day came. Luke's company was ready to test his big, shiny new rocket. Luke hovered over the flight plan of his amazing vehicle, which was (of course it was) named for a science fiction spaceship.

'We need to add some bricks to simulate a payload,' said the chief engineer.

'Bricks? Are you kidding? I mean, Joe, 10 out of 10 for brilliant engineering and all, but minus several million for style, ' replied Zaphod the Boss in the coolest, hoopiest way ever. It was a sweet, sweet moment for Luke Lugloper.

Once upon a time there was a little red car that went into space. Round and round went the little red car. Forever. But it wasn't the end...

He'd seen '2001: A Space Odyssey'...

I've read a lot of science fiction, been thrown down the stairs a few times too....just need several billion and I can send a bike into space...how much to use the don't panic logo?

I dunno...ask Robbie, he's over the moon...

Personally, I think it's a good sign for us. We've got mentioned in Twitter despatches...

Definitely not boring. I agree you never suggested boring. My example was just to illustrate how peaceful "could be" boring. (And in the end in its boringness something of a more interesting part of a bigger picture)

I've actually emailed one about conflict to you today DG, small world isn't it? Congrats to Mr Stamp

Oh, and thanks for the nice long piece of sort of fiction.

Welcome. And I got the story, FWR - great one, thanks! And one from MVP, too, so you're keeping the Post Office hopping!

CRE, you've brought up a really good point there - people tend to make stories boring when they try to make them 'nice'. And it's usually about false dichotomies, methinks...

That's just lazy. I think they throw those volcanoes in because they can't think of anything else. It takes creativity to come up with the Crock-Pot Disaster...(see Twitter).

'Sort of fiction' courtesy of a quick read in W*k*p*d** last night.

The story is all too familiar for me, because I work in the automotive business. My job depends on whether the claims posed by "Luke" are valid or not...

I hear you. So often, these Carnegies leave us at the whims of their prejudices...I read something about peculiar attitudes toward public transportation...

"Negative ideas are easily caught in the general flow of human misery, and rush down the river with all the others. You don't have to put an oar into the water to speed them along. But a happy thought? A suggestion that this, too, might be a reparable situation? You'd better have good rowing muscles, is what I'm saying."

Wise words from the Entry

"It's like complaining about the news being full of wars and disasters. In a town where everyone was happy and nice to each other, you'd be writing things like 'On Saturday, the Townswomen's Guild held their flower show and Mrs Roger's dahlias were judged outstanding'."

Fascinatingly different perspective - to me, I'd much rather see more of the flower shows because of there being less war and disaster, as it reminds me of "May you live in interesting times" A807374 ...

When I was a teenager I loved reading my local newspaper too, and particularly enjoyed the lovely photos and articles saying how well the flower shows went. I even got to help with writing some of the flower show copy for the paper after that, in the couple of years when it still had a print edition but insufficient paid reporters

"But you still need some kind of tension between 'is' and 'oughta be', methinks. "

Yes, I agree with that - I'm not usually a one for reading family sagas because I tend to prefer escapism into fantasy worlds, but Charlotte Yonge's 'Hopes and Fears' A87890377 really appealed to me as it deals with peace, love and understanding but is not dull as the gentle tensions and nuances are recognisable outside the book...

"Moments of sadness give value/reference to the happiness."

Yes indeed - that's my happysad philosophy... A87903697

Good summary, there.

Perhaps the answer lies in the characterisation. If you can create strong characters who come to life on the page, you can write, say, a family saga where there are tensions within a marriage, or between brothers and everyone will find it interesting.(Anna Karenina perhaps).

Maybe writers only need to resort to major wars and volcanic eruptions if their characters are thin. (And I'm trying to write a story set against the background of France in World War 2).

Getting back to Luke. There is some ongoing discussion as to how much the launching of a car into space will offset the environmental /CO2 footprint of said "eco friendly" car type. It took a whopping 440 tons of rocket fuel to do this. On the other hand, considering the planned mileage of 250 million km's, the CO2 emission per km is not that bad after all... And the world gets some fresh NGO footage of a round earth for all those who still think "flat earth".

Other problems:
-How to get the car back for the MOT.
-Speeding tickets (potentially expensive at 7 miles/second)

Which brings us to the practical problems of seven league boots... If you walk too fast, you reach escape velocity pretty quickly. So take a deep breath first....